this is FANTASTIC - no name "simulation crew" Pop will cream the 3 legends of coaching (in their fans and their own minds) Jackass (Phill); Slick hair Riley and Rarely-Stay Brown! Just Love it! Go Spurs and Pop and simulation....

I thought the Heat were a very well-coached team last season, if Riley is an improvement over SVG, will it make that much of a difference?

It doesn't really matter who (between SVG and Riles) coaches the Heat the next few years, IMO, as their success is always going to hinge on whether Shaq and Wade can stay healthy, given Shaq's age and Wade's reckless style.

Also another thing is you cant use the Heats injuries as an excuse. I am sorry we had injuries to and we didnt use them as an excuse. If your healthy enough to be on the court thats good enough. I am sick of hearing the IF they were healthy BS. They were up 6 in the 4th of game 7 NO EXCUSES Pistons were better! I bet it is killing Shaq that Duncan has as many rings as he does bwawawawawawwawawa.

No one is taking into account Riley's validity over Stan Van Gundy. Their track records don't compare. That one is an obviously better coach is not the arguement here.

Sure Riley has won 155 playoff games and has a .608 playoff winning percentage but he hasn't won on that scale since his laker days. Since he left the lakers he's compiled a 53-53 playoff record and missed the playoffs twice. His recent performance makes one wonder if the lakers could have won without him as their coach.

Stan Van Gundy has gone 17-11 and has a .607 playoff winning percentage in his 2 years as head coach. He took over the team after Riley bailed on them and proceded to lead a team nobody thought would do anyting to the second round of the playoffs. As much as Riley MAY have had bad luck, Van Gundy came within 1 game of the finals coaching a team that had both of its stars injuried.

Riley is a relic of the 80's and will do more harm to his rep than good if he takes over this team. Stan VG is the better coach for this team.

Yeah, it's a pretty classless move, but hey it's the NBA, nobody said it has to be classy or moral. These things happen all the time. I happen to think that Stan has done a whale of job, that Heat team was as competitive as anything that Riley put out there when he had alonzo and the best record in the NBA. I just think the franchise is snakebitten. I forget what year, I think it was 99 they were the favorites to win it all, then they got bumped in the 1st round by the Knicks. Stan had this team on the cusp, injuries did him in, not his coaching.

Riley has better credentials, but why should it be beyond dispute that he's currently the better coach? Maybe Riley's just better respected by Shaq, and I'll bet that azz Mourning is wildly supportive of a coaching change. Maybe Stan didn't treat those guys with the "proper respect". Maybe Stan was being too Pop-like, treating star players too much like everybody else. Who knows?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pjjrfan

Yeah, it's a pretty classless move, but hey it's the NBA, nobody said it has to be classy or moral. These things happen all the time.

I've never seen anything like this happen. The closest is probably Dumars firing Carlisle and getting Larry Brown, but at least Brown was an outsider at the time.

Besides, which team president worth his salt would say he might "take a more active participation in some of the things"? You mean you have no idea that saying stuff like that undermines the authority of a coach in the face of his players? Is he dumb, or simply paving the road for SVG's eventual failure and dismissal?

__________________
Whatcha gonna do when Huxamania runs wild on you?!!

Listen, when Rick Carlislie was replaced by Larry Brown a few years ago everyone said it was a crazy move by Dumars. You had all the wimps crying about Loyalty and saying that Rick "deserved" to coach this team. After Larry Brown won the championship everybody changed their tune and called DUmars a genuis. Perfect coaching move... yada, yada, yada...

The same thing is happening here. Pat Riley is a MUCH better coach than SVG. It is not even debateable. Basketball isn't about loyalty. It is about winning. And if Pat thinks he is what it takes to get this team a NBA championship than who are we to question his decision.

I tell you this, as a Spurs fan, I would MUCH rather face the Heat in the Finals lead by SVG rather than Pat Riley. Riles is a proven championship coach.

Listen, when Rick Carlislie was replaced by Larry Brown a few years ago everyone said it was a crazy move by Dumars. You had all the wimps crying about Loyalty and saying that Rick "deserved" to coach this team. After Larry Brown won the championship everybody changed their tune and called DUmars a genuis. Perfect coaching move... yada, yada, yada...

The same thing is happening here. Pat Riley is a MUCH better coach than SVG. It is not even debateable. Basketball isn't about loyalty. It is about winning. And if Pat thinks he is what it takes to get this team a NBA championship than who are we to question his decision.

I tell you this, as a Spurs fan, I would MUCH rather face the Heat in the Finals lead by SVG rather than Pat Riley. Riles is a proven championship coach.

-The Logo

Unless he's coaching against Jeff van Gundy - then he looks very very mortal.

Those teams he coached in Miami were never any good though. If anything, Riles made the worst decision of his life by wanting to be gm and coach at the same time without really knowing how to evaluate talent. He ended up giving Miami teams that were too small and too weak mentally (besides ZO who has always been a warrior). It is a wonder that he didn't give up on the heat sooner rather than later as coach.

But in the end, he may yet redeem himself for those horrible late 90's and early 00's moves. The acquiring of LO and CB were both good moves. Picking Wade was pure genius. Trading LO, CB and BG's horrible contract for Shaq was one of the most one-sided trades ever in sports history.

Riles has finally made the team he has always wanted to coach since he left the lakers. He has his dominate center in Shaq to compare to Kareem (he tried to force ZO into this role but he never was in these guy's class). HE has a developing legendary ball wingman / pg in Wade to compare to Magic (as compared to Eddie Jones who he tried, and miserably failed, to put in this role) and now has good role players to fill it out the roster (Haslem, ZO, and Eddie J fill out nicely for this role).

Yeah, a decade and a half ago.
He might strill be a good coach. But what reasons would he have for replacing SVG with himself? I don't see where SVG has been a part of any problems they have. Now of course, there might be happenings behind the scenes we don't know about, but I'm giving SVG the benifit of the doubt.
If Wade and Shaq had not been hurt, they could very well have been in the finals.
I don't see where SVG has odne anything to warrant critisism.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bnwhuxley

Larry Brown would not have taken the same Detroit team that Rick Carlisle had b4 him to the Championship. Not without the Rasheed trade.

Well look at what Detroit did when they fired there coach and hired Brown.

Just about any good coach could have taken that team to the championship. The Pistons had very little competition in the Least. All Brown had to do was get them past the Pacers and the championship was theirs. By the finals, the Lakers were too worn down mentally and physically to compete with anyone. The Pistons championship wasn't about LB being a great coach, it was about being in the perfect place at the perfect time.

I'm begining to think the same about Riley. Yeah he won a few with the showtime Lakers, but that was SHOWTIME. They had so much verteran leadership on those teams (Magic, Kareem, Worthy, Scott, Green and Cooper) its possible anoybody could have won.

I think Riley's career is better defined by Stan Van Gundy's success with a team that Riley quit on just before the season started. Riley is an average coach put in good situations. Van Gundy is an unproven coach who has made the best of what he's had.

Listen, when Rick Carlislie was replaced by Larry Brown a few years ago everyone said it was a crazy move by Dumars. You had all the wimps crying about Loyalty and saying that Rick "deserved" to coach this team. After Larry Brown won the championship everybody changed their tune and called DUmars a genuis. Perfect coaching move... yada, yada, yada...

The same thing is happening here. Pat Riley is a MUCH better coach than SVG. It is not even debateable. Basketball isn't about loyalty. It is about winning. And if Pat thinks he is what it takes to get this team a NBA championship than who are we to question his decision.

I tell you this, as a Spurs fan, I would MUCH rather face the Heat in the Finals lead by SVG rather than Pat Riley. Riles is a proven championship coach.

-The Logo

You assume that Carlisle would have not won a ring with that same Pistons team in 2004. That could be true, but the fact is that we will never know. The addition of Rasheed Wallace was what put the Pistons over the top that year, not LB. Brown did not even want Rasheed on the team when the pick up was first announced.

You also assume that loyalty and winning are seperate entities. Ask the Chicago Bulls if loyalty and winning are seperate. Maybe you can recall that after the dismantling of the Bulls after 6 championships and the firing of Jackson they couldn't find a single respectable big talent vet to go play for them because they (Jerry Krause mostly) had the reputation of lacking a shred of loyalty.

Pop was one of those "loyal wimps" you speak of in '2000 when TD hurt his knee and the Spurs could not properly defend their '99 championship. Pop did not and has not ever pushed his players to play injured and initially he took time to see if Tim's knee would heal on its own so TD could avoid surgery. Do you think that Tim gave consideration to that loyalty when Orlando was offering him big $$ and he could have left the Spurs and gone to a larger market with more marketing / endorsements ?

My point is that one needs to be very careful in assuming that loyalty and winning do not co-exist. There is a very fine line there, and often we find out that they are in fact joined at the hip.

Pat Riley stressed Saturday that he has no designs on Stan Van Gundy's job as a means of returning to coaching.

"I would quit my job before I would dismiss Stan Van Gundy as the head coach simply because I wanted to coach. Period. That's not me," Riley said in a phone interview. "Anybody who knows me, knows that I wouldn't do that for the sake of me wanting to get back into the job."

But in his role as team president, Riley also said he reserves the right to make such a change.

"I would dismiss my brother or anybody in the organization if I felt things weren't going right," he said. "That's my job as the president."

Hoping to put an end to speculation that his return to the Heat bench was imminent, Riley praised Van Gundy for his leadership of the team the past two seasons, which included coming with two minutes of this season's NBA Finals.

"He's done an absolutely great job," said Riley, who moved into a full-time front office position on the eve of the 2003-04 season, after eight years as Heat coach. "I don't know what I have to do, get down on my knees and point my fingers to the sky to say that he's done a great job? Everybody knows he's done a great job and it's my intention to continue to make sure I continue to support him in that."

Riley said that support will immediately become more evident.

"I'm not a president who has worked his way through the ranks as an international scout or as a player director of personnel, or somebody who has never been on the floor," Riley said. "I happen to be a president with 22 years of coaching experience, so I know what goes on. I would think that anybody would want to listen.

"When I made that statement that I want to get more involved with some of the things that are going on with the basketball program, it's not a shot at Stan. That's me wanting to get involved, at a time, not from coaching standpoint, at a time when we have a great opportunity for a championship. And I think I have the kind of experience that I could add to that. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And I don't think I should be condemned for that. It's my job."

In essence, that could mean a return to more of a rigid Riley culture, one with a well-defined code of conduct both on and off the court.

"We're at a stage with this franchise where we have put together a team where the challenge is greater than it's ever been," Riley said. "And I want to make sure that people are vigilant about all the things in the last 10 years that I've created in this culture, to continue on that same path, to make that happen. So I will be more actively involved in just about everything."

Riley said the only coaching change he has viewed as necessary is the one that put Van Gundy in place two seasons ago.

"I've already made one change," he said. "Nobody talks about that. I made a change. I stepped down and moved Stan in."

Riley spoke in the wake of last week's comments on ESPN from former Heat television analyst Jack Ramsay that a Heat coaching shuffle was imminent.

"What he said is absolutely unconscionable," Riley said. "There's no truth to that at all. And if there's a high-ranking, gutless official in the Heat organization that gave him that piece of information, it is an absolute lie."

Riley said he has yet to meet with Van Gundy about specifics of his increased involvement.

"I haven't had that meeting yet with him, because I've been rather busy over the last six weeks," Riley said. "I didn't think it was essential right now in the middle of July to have that kind of meeting. I will have a meeting with Stan about the coming season, about the theme, about what he has in mind, about how he looks at it, about his thoughts about last year, about personnel. That's what we do.

"I've been accused of leaving Stan twisting in the air. I haven't left him twisting in the air. I've communicated to him. Who's left him twisting in the air is the media constantly keeping this thing alive."

Riley said neither his players nor owner Micky Arison have pushed for a coaching change.

"(Arison) has not weighed in on this in any way, shape or form," Riley said. "He does not like it. He's uncomfortable with everything that is going on. But it's my call on all decisions until he makes a call on me."

Riley, though, would not rule out an eventual return to the sidelines.

"I'll never say never to ever wanting to coach again," he said. "I think it's a human factor on my part, and I'll never say never to that. I also will say at times I miss it. That's also a human reaction."

Asked, jokingly, if a slow start, such as 7-30, would lead him to shove past Van Gundy, Riley said, "If we start off 7-30, I'm gone. I fire myself."

Mostly, Riley stressed that he, solely, is in charge.

"I'm not just going to sit on my hands and watch things happen that I don't necessarily agree with, hoping that they're going to go away," he said. "And that has to do with the players, and that has to do with the coaches, and that has to do with management and has to do with anyone."

SHAQ WAITS

Riley said it now appears more likely the Heat will have to wait until Friday's close of the NBA's signing moratorium to reach a new contract with center Shaquille O'Neal. "We can't do anything until the moratorium ends," he said... Riley confirmed a meeting with the agent for free-agent point guard Damon Jones, but said an eye on the dollar-for-dollar luxury tax could impact those talks.

what the hell? if Pop is not on the Rushmore of modern day coaches the list is bunk
Pop has 3x more championships than lame ass Larry

Jack Ramsey has just joined the senial analysis like Hubie Brown who love to dismiss the Spurs

The program was specifically about Jackson, Riley and Brown. Bob Ley compared them to a "Mount Rushmore" of coaching, but at the same time asked the panelists why Gregg Popovich was not seen in the same light as these men, despite having 3 NBA Titles of his own.

Ramsey stated that Pop was certainly their equal as a coach, and that he gets his players to firmly believe in their system. But he also stated that Pop is an "Aw shucks" kind of a guy who could care less whether he gets the pub or noteriety that these three seem to crave. They have different personalities than Pop, but that he is more than worthy of being considered on par with these three.

Scoop Jackson reiterrated what Ramsey said - but also pointed out that Pop has toiled in a small market, while the other three have competed and won in very large markets (LA, NY, Miami, Phiiladelphia, Detroit, Chicago) while Pop has not - so the majority of the casual fans don't see him or consider him of Riley or Jacksons stature.

They were both very complimentary of Pop and agreed that his style and accomplishments don't get noticed enough.

There was absolutely no bashing or hating of Gregg Popovich whatsoever.